Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek, Brian Lazar · Apr 2, 2024 · Aspen
Weather
Cloudy morning clearing to a beautiful, warm, bluebird day with light westerly winds.
Snowpack
The snowpack in this area is significantly shallower than the West Elks with the average height of snow around 150-230cm on the east side of Highlands Ridge. The March 23 layer is about two to three feet below the snow surface and composed of 1-2mm rounding facets (FCxr). This layer was unreactive in snowpack tests on east and northeast slopes above 11,500 feet. Deeper buried weak layers on easterly slopes are significantly less concerning as they are one to two meters deep underneath a P hard (on the hand hardness scale) slab. Abundant avalanche activity on north and northwest-facing slopes suggests this is not the case just a few aspects over. No snowpits were dug on the west side of the ridge as we did not feel safe dropping down onto any steep slopes off Highlands Ridge above Maroon Creek. There is no noticeable dust in the new snow in this area and the old dust layer is buried around three to four feet deep on easterly slopes near and above treeline.
Avalanche
Notable avalanche activity from the past few days primarily on north and northwest-facing slopes with several avalanches on northeast and east-facing slopes as well. Avalanches on north and northwest-facing slopes appeared to consistently break on deeper buried weak layers all often to the ground while avalanches on northeast and east slopes were mostly confined to the new snow. Clear views and additional pictures of the Tonar Bowl D3.5 avalanche coded in this observation: https://avalanche.state.co.us/observations/field-report/4f14b6f8-bd6c-483e-804d-c241a8cde36d